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Part of the Cisco Prime™ Infrastructure bundle, Cisco® Prime Network Control System (NCS) provides converged user, access, and identity management across wired and wireless networks to meet the challenges that Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) is placing on IT organizations. Designed with users and their mobile devices in mind, Cisco Prime NCS speeds network troubleshooting by giving IT complete visibility into connectivity, regardless of device, network or location. Deep integration with the Cisco Identity Services Engine (ISE) further extends this visibility across security and policy-related problems, presenting a complete view of client issues with a clear path to solving them. Cisco Prime NCS (Figure 1) delivers full lifecycle management of Cisco wireless LAN infrastructure, with additional focus on the deployment and management of branch networks.

Figure 1. Cisco Prime Network Control System

The platform significantly reduces operational costs by eliminating the need for competing overlay management solutions for wired, wireless, and branch networks, as well as security policy. Built on the foundation of Cisco Wireless Control System (WCS), Cisco Prime NCS:

●Helps resolve access problems across wired and wireless networks to get users back online faster

Getting the wireless LAN up and running quickly and cost-effectively to meet end-user needs is streamlined with the broad array of Cisco Prime NCS integrated configuration templates. Flexible, easy-to-use templates and deployment tools - such as the Controller Auto-Provisioning feature for zero-touch deployment of Cisco Wireless LAN Controllers - help IT managers provision and configure the wireless LAN to expressly deliver the services that their business requires (Figure 4). These templates and tools make it simple to apply common and best-practices configurations across multiple wireless LAN controllers regardless of their location, streamlining even the most complex controller configurations, updates, and scheduling. Provisioning access points is just as simple with easy‑to-use templates for customized configuration of multiple access points.

Figure 4. Flexible Deployment Tools and Configuration Templates

Monitoring and Troubleshooting

Cisco Prime NCS is the ideal management platform for monitoring and troubleshooting the wired and wireless LAN to maintain robust performance and deliver an optimal access experience to fixed and mobile endpoints. The centralized interface of Cisco Prime NCS makes it easy to access information where it’s needed, when it’s needed, on-demand or as scheduled.

The easy-to-use graphical display serves as a starting point for maintenance, security, troubleshooting, and future capacity planning activities. Quick access to actionable data about healthy and unhealthy devices is available from a variety of entry points, making Cisco Prime NCS vital to ongoing network operations.

The integrated workflows and extensive array of troubleshooting tools in Cisco Prime NCS help IT administrators quickly identify, isolate, and resolve problems across all components of the Cisco access network. Cisco NCS supports rapid troubleshooting of LANs and WLANs of any size with minimal IT staffing. A set of tools works together to help IT administrators understand the operational nuances occurring on the LAN and WLAN and discover nonoptimal events occurring outside baseline parameters (for example, client connection or roaming problems):

●Built-in tools such as the Client Troubleshooting tool support help desk staff and level-two administrators resolve client access issues by providing guidance on where the actual problem may be.

●The security dashboard allows for a network-level assessment and provides a security index with suggestions on how to improve security across your deployment.

●The voice-service audit tool not only provides a way to audit the current network configuration for voice over wireless LAN (VoWLAN) deployments, but also provides a way to rectify the current configuration based on Cisco best practices for VoWLAN deployment.

Optimization

Cisco Prime NCS includes customizable reporting that assists IT teams to effectively manage, maintain, and evolve the wireless LAN to meet ongoing business and operations requirements. In addition to tools such as configuration compliance monitoring with comprehensive auditing functionality, flexible reports provide access to the right data, at the right time, in a format to meet any requirement (Figure 7).

Figure 7. Customizable Reports to Meet Any Requirement

An extensive variety of reports is available to help IT managers stay on top of network trends, maintain network control, perform audit operations, and quickly address changing business and end-user requirements. Reports are customizable based on user-defined parameters. Detailed trend analysis of the network environment, as well as capacity planning, provides a cohesive understanding how the LAN or the WLAN has changed over time in order to project and plan for future growth and enhancements.

New Features in Cisco Prime Network Control System 1.1

Table 1 lists the new features in Cisco Prime Network Control System 1.1.

Supports customized rogue rules on the controller based on parameters such as service set identifiers (SSIDs), received signal strength indication (RSSI), and other parameters for better filtering of false positives.

Rogue AP alarm severity customization

Supports customized rogue access point alarm severity. You can tie alarms to email notifications in NCS, and choose to be alerted for malicious rogues only or for any rogue.

Multilevel filters in client reports

Supports more than one filter in reports - floor plus SSID, for example - to focus on clients of interest.

Advance filters for client list page

Supports advanced filters in client list page to focus on clients of interest, just as on the alarms page.

Graphical display of historical client

Provides graphical displays on access point detail pages to show client count trends.

Batch reports and templates

Supports creation of report templates at the root domain so a report can be populated to all member domains.

●Manage up to 5000 routers and switches for configuration management, monitoring and troubleshooting functions.

●Scalable mobility delivered through integration with Cisco MSE. Scalable identity service management delivered through integration with the Cisco ISE.

●Physical appliance or virtual appliance deployment options for ease of installation and setup.

Wired management

●Comprehensive configuration, monitoring, and troubleshooting support for Cisco Catalyst switches allows for visibility into critical performance metrics for interfaces, ports, endpoints, and users, as well as basic switch inventory.

WLAN lifecycle management

●Comprehensive wireless LAN lifecycle management includes a full range of planning, deployment, monitoring, and troubleshooting, remediation, and optimization capabilities.

●Tools and processes support monitoring, upgrading, and migrating selected Cisco Aironet autonomous access points to operate as lightweight access points and run control and provisioning of wireless access points (CAPWAP).

●Role-based access control provides flexibility to segment the wireless network into one or more virtual domains controlled by a single Cisco Prime NCS platform.

●Cisco Spectrum Expert
® can be utilized for Cisco Aironet access points that are enabled with Cisco CleanAir technology and configured for Cisco Spectrum Expert.

●You can troubleshoot large-scale LAN and WLAN networks with minimal IT staffing.

●The Client Troubleshooting tool supports a step-by-step analysis of problems and misconfigurations for all client devices across all connection media, with support to troubleshoot issues such as 802.1X (for wired and wireless networks), and identify RF interferers that are affecting client devices.

●Integrated workflows and tools help IT administrators quickly assess service disruptions, receive notices about performance degradation, research resolutions, and take action to remedy nonoptimal situations. The Client Troubleshooting tool provides guidance on where the access problem may be.

●Alerts, summaries, and reports about air quality and interferers are included with Cisco CleanAir technology to help diagnose the RF environment and mitigate interference from Wi-Fi and non-Wi-Fi sources.

●The security dashboard and the security index provide a quick assessment of network security, and ways to improve it.

●Voice tools support customizable queries to address VoWLAN problems.

WLAN optimization

●Extensive on-demand and automated reports can be run on immediate and historic data on network activity, performance, usage, devices, inventory, compliance, security, and air quality.

●Alarms and events can be forwarded to third-party, northbound receivers and fault, configuration, accounting, performance, and security (FCAPS) applications that understand traps such as HP OpenView or IBM Tivoli Netcool.

Cisco Prime NCS 1.1 is available exclusively as part of the Cisco Prime Infrastructure 1.1 bundle. Upgrade options are available for existing Cisco Prime NCS and Cisco Wireless Control System customers. For information on Cisco Prime Infrastructure 1.1 licensing, evaluation, upgrade, and ordering, refer to the Cisco Prime Infrastructure 1.1 Ordering and Licensing Guide.

Based on leading practices, these services help accelerate your transition to an advanced mobility architecture that optimizes performance, reliability, and security, so that you can maintain business innovation while controlling costs.

Our services help you successfully deploy Cisco Prime NCS and integrate mobility solutions effectively to lower the total cost of ownership and secure your wireless network. To learn more about Cisco Wireless LAN Service offers, visit: http://www.cisco.com/go/wirelesslanservices.

Technical Service Options

Cisco Prime Infrastructure software products come with the Cisco 90-day software warranty. Purchasing a Cisco Software Application Support plus Upgrades (SASU) service provides benefits not available with the warranty, including access to maintenance releases, minor and major upgrades, online resources, and Technical Assistance Center support services.

The Cisco Prime physical appliance option comes with a Cisco 90-day hardware warranty. Adding a contract for a technical service offering, such as Cisco SMARTnet® Service, to your device coverage provides access to the Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) and can provide a variety of hardware replacement options to meet critical business needs, updates for licensed operating system software, and registered access to the extensive Cisco.com knowledge base and support tools.